'Sometimes I spit blood': Vast landfill in Ghana threatens local health and environment

Accra - Acrid smoke hangs over the sprawling Agbogbloshie landfill, a district in the Ghanaian capital of Accra.

Excavators cut through mountains of slowly smouldering waste, while thin black plumes rise from burning plastic and rubber.

Thousands of tonnes of waste have accumulated here in the open air for decades. This has overwhelmed the Accra lagoon and its fragile ecosystem, alongside the neighbouring informal settlement of Old Fadama and its approximately 80,000 residents, who are mainly migrants and traders.

Every day, without gloves or a protective mask, James Hassan, a 31-year-old scrap metal dealer from Liberia, sifts through discarded electronics and metals to resell them.

His hands bear the marks of his labour: the skin on his palms is thick and scarred with cuts and rashes that he has “grown used to”.

“I have headaches and a cough after long days spent in the sun,” explains Hassan, who has “never seen a doctor”.

According to Reginald Quansah, an epidemiologist at the University of Ghana, landfill workers can absorb toxic metals and chemicals through skin cuts and by inhaling fumes and dust.

However, he notes it is difficult to establish a link between specific illnesses and the pollution at Agbogbloshie, as “there is no causal study” directly connecting health issues to a particular toxin present on the site.

Fashion “dumping ground”

Much of the waste in Agbogbloshie originates from outside Ghana’s borders.

The city’s vast second-hand fashion market absorbs imports from Europe, North America and Asia, yet “many garments shipped to Ghana arrive as waste,” Samuel Quashie-Idun, head of investigations at Greenpeace Africa, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The non-governmental organisation (NGO) estimates that 15 million used garments arrive in Ghana each week, which amounted to over 110,000 tonnes for the entirety of 2022.

Once traders have sorted what they can sell, wear or repair, roughly half ends up as “dead waste”, dumped on beaches, in fields and at Agbogbloshie, where it is burned.

For a population of just 35 million, “these volumes far exceed local demand, and a large portion simply overloads waste management systems,” Greenpeace states.

According to the NGO, the majority of imported textiles are synthetic. Indeed, 89 percent of sampled “end-of-life” garments contain petrochemical fibres such as polyester, which release microplastics as they decompose.

Among the identified brands are global fast fashion heavyweights Primark and H&M, alongside Marks & Spencer. Greenpeace recorded the presence of benzene and other carcinogenic substances at concentrations several hundred times higher than safety thresholds in the smoke released by burning these textiles.

“This is not just an environmental crisis [...] It is also a health crisis,” says Hellen Kahaso Dena, project lead at Greenpeace. “Global North countries are effectively using Ghana as a dumping ground for fashion waste.”

Contamination

In addition to textiles, electrical and electronic waste is piling up: old refrigerators, televisions, household appliances and computers undergo rudimentary recycling.

Barima Okuanaju manually dismantles refrigerators and cars to salvage copper wires, aluminium panels and iron parts, which he then sells for 50 to 100 cedis daily.

Burning computer cables and batteries releases lead, mercury and other toxins, emitting soot and dioxins that local communities breathe in.

The Agbogbloshie food market, with its produce stalls, thrives amidst the fumes.

Aminatu Fatawu, 14, sells bottled water to local workers to save money for her school fees.

Due to the continuous burning of rubbish, “it always makes me cough. When I spit, there is sometimes blood,” she laments, crushing a drop of saliva between her fingers.

Quansah, the epidemiologist, emphasises the risks for local workers: toxic dust and fumes can impair lung development and neurological health, particularly among the youngest residents.

Lead, for example, “has a high affinity for the brain,” he notes, and childhood exposure causes learning difficulties, “a link documented elsewhere, although not proven in the Ghanaian context”.

Heavy metals and organic pollutants from the landfill leach into the lagoon and soil, reaching fish and crops.

Clean-up operation

In September, Ghanaian president John Mahama launched a clean-up operation, ordering the removal of one million tonnes of waste from Agbogbloshie within 90 days.

Since then, excavators have begun transporting the waste to the Adepa engineered landfill, approximately 50 kilometres from Accra.

On-site, the rubbish will be compacted and buried in compliance with strict environmental protection measures, assures the government, which hopes to create up to 20,000 jobs for informal collectors by training them in recycling.

Hassan, the Liberian scrap dealer, would be “delighted to give up this activity” if the government “offered safer work”. However, he no longer believes in such promises, having heard them too many times in the past.